The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-12-03
LIFE TWICE WASTED.
Youths oompanioa.


 Robert Cheviot has recently trans lated from a German writer remark able story, which, although wholly . work of the imagination, conveys . significant meaning to every reader. 1t purports to be the life history of the son of Saxon peasant, born in squallid poverty and reared in igno- rance. No gleam of intelligence, of knowledge, or even of rational amuse- ment, frightened the monotonous twi- light of his days. He lived the life of boys and young men of his class, but growing more brutal in his tastes as the years passed.
 When he reached middle age there came change He went to great city, fortune favored him, and at last he became wealthy. But he himself was unchanged. He knew no higher use for money than to spend it in gratifying the lower passions and de- basing tastes which had been nursed in his early life.
 Still he was spared, and his body seemed to set at naught the ordinary law of nature that every man shall suffer for the abuse of his own appe- tites But at last even his iron frame yielded. In extreme old age, on his ninetieth birthday, he was confronted by Death.
 The grim enemy appeared to him, so the story runs, as visible pres- ence, and summoning him to the ret ribution awaiting one who had mis- spent his life.
 The old man begged to live his life over again, pleading that his birth and childhood, in poverty and vice, had given him no chance to know God, or to serve him. If he could have another chance, he would devote his life to good works and to service of God. The prayer was granted, for the first time in the history of the world. He was suffered to live his life over again.
 He died, and was born again as the son of a powerful nobleman. He rec ollected distinctly his first life, and knew, too, that to him had been given, through Gods infinite mercy and pa- tience, this chance to redeem its er- TOTS, and save himself from punish ment.
 He has now wealth, youth and the homage of the world. He holds the full cup of worldly pleasure to his lips, and again he drinks deeply of it. He does not forget his purpose to live a new and better life, but delays be- ginning.
 -'Yet another day and I will re- pent," he says. "Yet day to enjoy life. Then I will devote myself to God and all good things"
 The days pass; the weeks, the years. He grows more vicious as each carries up it's black record to heaven. His first life had been evil chiefly to him self. His second life is stained with foul crimes against others. At last he commits a murder; he stays his nearest friend.
 Appalled,, the terrified wretch drives the knife into his own heart and gives back his soul, still foul and stained, to God.
 The folly of the man who thus, for idle, trivial pleasures, wasted the op- portunities granted to him, astonishes and dismays every reader of this wild tale. But does the reader think ofhis own folly who has but one life to live?
 "Beware," says the Arab proverb Chow thou dealest with God or thy brother. For thou shalt never meet him at the same crossing of the ways again."
 To every man or woman who comes into the world God gives the opportu- nifty to enter at death into a higher nobler, happier life. One sells his chance for fame, another for money, a third for gay clothes and vapid, fash ionable folly, and yet another for sen- sual indulgence.
 One day, blank wall shuts down across the path. Here lies the mans body, lump of decaying matter. His frame passes like the forgotten sound of yesterdays wind what do the rich garments or what does selfish indul- gence count now to him? Alas must such a human history he repeated over and over again, and the living take no warning from the dead?